Baptism

Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. We had a visiting priest today and he led us through the renewal of our baptismal promises.

I’ve been thinking a bit about baptism over the last couple of days knowing that today is the
Baptism of the Lord.  I was thinking about my earliest memories of baptism, and what I understand it’s meaning to be today.

I was raised protestant, as I have written about before here. My earliest memory of baptism is from the Nazarene Church where I spent most of my childhood growing up in. The basement of that church was a big wide open room.  I remember singing lots of children’s songs gathered in the big room for Children’s Church and I remember having Sunday School in a sectioned off portion of that room.  We spent so much time in that church that we had plenty of time to explore. We knew every inch of that little church which was really a neat thing for us as there were a couple different staircases and three different levels.  Anyway, one of the most fascinating things was in the big open room in the basement, there was a door in the floor in one area.  I remember one day we asked one of my friend’s dads what it was. He pulled open the door to reveal a large pool with stairs down into it. It was the baptismal.  We, of course, were fascinated that this whole time running around all over that church we had discovered a secret hidden most of the time.  And then of course I never trusted walking over that part of the floor again. 

I got baptized in that baptismal, I can’t be certain what age I was, but I had to be around ten or eleven. What disappoints me is that I have only very slightest memories of my baptism. I remember being scared about being under water, (still not my favorite thing) and I remember being in the bathroom after soaking wet.   They remodeled the basement shortly after that; they turned the big open space into three rooms, two classrooms and a nursery.  I did a lot of babysitting in that nursery, which was built directly over the baptismal.  I do remember thinking of the baptismal often when I was in that room. I can’t recall exactly what I was thinking about it, but somehow I think I felt sad that it was now covered up, no longer to be used.

When my mom married my step-dad we started attending a Southern Baptist Church.  That baptismal was very different. When you were sitting in the pews looking straight ahead there was a window that wasn’t a window but an opening that was in front of the baptismal. So when someone was being baptized, you just sat in the pew and watched.  I got baptized in that baptismal also.  You see, the protestant denominations that I have been a part of believed that you should be baptized into that church.  Again, I have fairly vague memories of that baptism, mostly just the wetness of it, and having to change in the classroom at the bottom of the back stairs.  

But this baptism means more to me now, now that I am Catholic. It was the certificate from this baptism on November 6, 1983 that the Catholic Church accepted when I was coming to the end of my journey into the Catholic Church, as it states I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

I know that many Catholics were baptized as infants and have no memory at all of their baptism. I hope some of you at least have pictures. 

As we celebrate the Lord’s baptism today, I hope you think about your own baptism.  I hope that you can remember what it is and what it means. It is one of the many gifts from God that is taken for granted, but it is our membership into the Body of Christ. It is a cleansing of our souls from original sin and the first sacramental grace we receive.  It is a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us and we need to remember that he has given that love to us freely, freely dying on the cross for us, so that our sins could be forgiven.  How will you respond to that kind of love?  And I hope that as we all renew our baptismal promises again at the Easter Vigil, you will think about those promises and what they mean.

 Blessings,

7QT about Books, Music, Prayer, etc.

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During our family trip to Colorado we stumbled upon a store I had never heard of. It’s called Family Christian. As the name indicates it is a Christian store they had all kinds of different things for sale. I ended up purchasing a t-shirt for our neighbor girl who took care of our animals while we were away. It is somewhat difficult to find Christian stores so I am excited to visit their website when I next need a gift or bible or anything really. Click the picture above to take you to their website. They have a reward program called 1:27 which references James 1:27 that calls us to serve orphans and widows. Here are some of things they have accomplished, it is pretty impressive.



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One of the perks of Family Christian is their daily $5 deals. While we were there I purchased a Matt Maher CD and found my new favorite song: All the People Said Amen. It’s upbeat and refreshing and makes sing at the top of my lungs alone in my car.





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Travelling back from vacation I finished one of the best books I have ever read. It is called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It is an incredible story of learning to recognize and be thankful for the gifts that God gives us everyday. And how that leads to joy in the midst of the everyday craziness in our lives. I highly recommend it. I have begun my own gratitude journal and am excited to be more attentive to God's gifts in my life. The author blogs at AHolyExperience.com.

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Recently my husband and I started praying Vespers (Evening Prayer) together each night. We also found a beautiful prayer via an app call Laudate. The prayer is called Prayer for a Married Couple. It goes like this:

O God, we want to live our life together with you and always to continue it with you.

Help us  never to hurt and never to grieve each other.

Help us to share all our works, all our hopes, all our dreams, all our successes, all our failures, all our joys and all our sorrows.

Help us to have no secrets from each other so that we may be truly one.

Keep us always true to each other, and grant that all the years ahead may draw us closer to each other.

Grant that nothing may ever come between us and nothing may ever make us ever drift apart.

And as we live with each other, help us to live with you, so that our love may grow perfect in your love, for you are the God whose name is love.

This we ask for your love's sake. Amen 

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So while we were wondering around a mall with our daughter in Colorado, we stumbled upon something intriguing. There was a Catholic resource center and a chapel right there in a store in the mall.

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When you've been away from work on vacation for a while you never know what kind of pile of work you will return to. It wasn't to bad that first couple of days, however this week was a different story. Lots of different things going on this week including a huge project that we are in the middle of that required a lot of reporting and data collecting and meetings. Anyway, I came back refreshed and full of ideas again, which tends to happen when I'm not immersed in the day to day tasks that have to be done. So I am hopeful that I can keep myself focused enough to get some of those ideas implemented. We will see.

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I got my copy of Something Other Than God. I can't wait to read it. Obviously if you reading this from the Conversion Diary site you know all about it, but if you aren't it is the conversion story of Jennifer Fulwiler and her search for happiness. You can purchase it at many places, but this is the link to Amazon.









 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

{7QT} Mostly about Vacation

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We booked our tickets for our family trip to Colorado this week! Yay! I am so excited. It has been 4 years since we have been there, and you see that is where all of my family is. We live so far away from each other it just isn’t possible to travel very often. We will be gone for just under two weeks, from Thursday before Holy Week through Tuesday after. I will greatly miss being at my own parish for the Holy Week services and the Easter Vigil, but this trip is important and the timing works out for several reasons.

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One of the reasons it is good timing is that my baby sister and her family is also going to be there from Germany. I am so excited to finally meet her husband and her youngest baby boy. She and her baby girl were here with us in the fall of 2010 for a little while when her husband was oversees. The baby was only 6 months old. They then moved to Germany and had another child. I can’t wait to see them all.

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We will be staying with my step mom and dad and I am excited to get to spend time with them. I also can’t wait to spend time with my other sister and her kids. It will be good for all of us.

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I am also looking forward to catching up with a few friends from my childhood. One of them was one of my best friends. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m looking forward to potentially attending Holy Week and Easter services with her and her family. You see I don’t think she knows that I am Catholic now.

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Recently my husband has come back to his Catholic faith. It has been an amazing thing and he has really shown me that he wants to grow in his love for God and learn more about the Catholic Church. He has been attending Sunday and daily Mass with me and it has been such a blessing for him and for us. He is prepared to attend Mass in Colorado with me which is something that we have never done before on our visits. I am looking forward to it.

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My son will be attending the Regional Robotics Challenge in Virginia in a couple weeks. He is excited about it, but I am little nervous about him traveling so far away from home. So he will be missing some school for that and then he will also be missing a few days for our vacation. Lucky for him that he is doing really well this year so when I spoke to his counselor, she wasn’t that concerned about him missing a few days. Unlucky for him, is that I may have just instigated some homework for him on vacation. Oh well, it is still worth it.

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How is your Lent going? I am hoping that you all are having lots of time for prayer and reflection. Like I said in my last post, I am praying daily for those I love, those I work with, those I worship with and those bloggers out there that I read, especially all of you that are expecting little ones. I haven’t done well with finishing reading the Pope’s exhortation or the Screwtape Letters, but I still have a little time. Wishing you all many blessing this Lenten season.



 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Lent 2014

 

via

 

We begin 40 days of sacrifice, reflection, penance and prayer tomorrow.

These are my plans:

To read the daily reflection in “The Word Among Us”

Pray…often

Offering up a Hail Mary for everyone I love, everyone I work with, everyone I worship with, and all those bloggers out there that have come to be a part of my life

Attend daily Mass at my own parish on Wednesday evenings followed by Eucharistic Adoration

Finish reading the Pope’s Evangelii Gaudium

Try to finish The Screwtape Letters (that I didn’t finish last year)

 

I will probably do other things, but this is a good start.

 

 

St. Brigid of Ireland: February 1

St. Brigid of Ireland is my patron saint.

I choose her in 2002 when I became a fully initiated member of the Catholic Church.

I thought I would post what I had written 12 years ago about her.  See, two years prior I had just found my biological father. 

Here is what I wrote:

I choose St. Brigid because I have found some of my ancestors, including my great-great grandmother were from Kildare Ireland where St. Brigid was abbess of a monastery. Also one of here stories told that she settled with seven other virgins at the foot of Croghan Hill for a time. She took the veil in her youth at Croghan. 

My ancestors from Ireland are named Croghan.

 I felt a connection to St. Brigid when reading her stories.  I could picture an ancestor in her time seeing or experiencing God's grace through her, or even just running into her from time to time and sharing a smile or a hello.

 Her extraordinary spirituality and compassion are admirable to me and make me want to strive to be more like her.

I had wished that it was a daily Mass day today, but not this year.

Via

** Linking this up with equippingcatholicfamilies.com for their Celebration of Saints Linkup.

Mary, My Mother

This is the actual statue in my parish.

My parish is a St. Mary’s parish.  Each Sunday, I look up at Mary as she stands protective over her precious son in the tabernacle. Our choir sings a beautiful rendition of the Hail Mary at the end of communion each Sunday; it is beautiful and pulls me into such a peaceful place as I pray having just received the body and blood of my savior. For a little while now I had wanted to do something to help me along the path of devotion to Mary.  I wanted her to show me that she is there for me as a mother.  I have mother issues and I really just wanted to know that I can turn to her when I feel like I need to know a mother’s love. 

In early November, the parish where I attend daily mass sponsored a spiritual exercise called Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary.  It is a 33-day self-guided retreat using one of two provided books throughout the thirty three days to prepare yourself to make an act of total consecration to Jesus through his mother Mary.  I was anxious to participate in this exercise because of my recent desire to be closer to her.   

The book we were given to use is by Fr. Hugh Gillespie, SMM which is the preparation according to St. Louise De Monfort.  We had another option, but this one struck me immediately and I felt like it was the one I needed to use. 

 

I went through each day’s reading with pretty regular devotion. (I think I only fell behind a couple days at one point, but I caught up).  The date set up to make the consecration was on December 12^th, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I prayerfully went through the thirty-three days in hopes that I would feel that my devotion to Mary was growing.  The thing is I didn’t really feel like it was. 

Through this time I was very drawn to praying the Hail, Holy Queen.  For those of you who might not know it, here it is:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee we do cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up pour sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus; O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.  Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

I had met with the pastor for a few minutes earlier in the week and in the conversation had told him that I didn’t know if I was going to make the Act of Total Consecration because I didn’t feel I had made much progress towards Mary.  He said to me that he thought that was pretty normal and at the time I was having him bless my new rosary, he said if I keep using these, it would come.  He was right.

It took a little longer than the December 12^th date, but I now have a much deeper devotion to Mary.  I am still working on it, but over the last couple of weeks she has shown me how much she is there for me.  I recently placed a request in her hands via praying the Memorare, and it became clear to me she is here for me.  The Memorare if you don’t know it:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, That never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought they intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O virgin of virgins, my mother. To thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me.

I continue in my search and want for a closer devotion to Mary, but I know now that I am on the right path.  I look forward to all the times to come when she will show me that she is there for me, that she will intercede for me to her blessed son Jesus Christ.

oooppppsss... I was supposed to give away my second copy of "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic"

Back in November, I had mentioned that I had an extra copy of Matthew Kelly's The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic.  And somewhere between the holidays, I forgot. 

So today as I was still picking up and moving the furniture back into place, I realized I still had it. 

I put the names that commented on that post on a piece of paper and drew one.  The lucky winner is my step mom.  I will be getting it in the mail to you tomorrow, ok?

Sorry about the delay!

2013 in Photos

 

Dwija over at House Unseen is hosting her annual phone linkup for the year.  I love to look back at the photos from the year, so I thought I would add mine.  2013 was a great year for me, let me show you a few of the reasons.

 

 

This is pretty much how the beginning of any year around here is.  It was a pretty major snow storm but it was so beautiful, I had to stop and take pictures.  I used this for a Theme Thursday post.

 

 

This was my picture for my one and only "What I Wore Sunday" linkup.  However, I wanted to include it because it was what I wore to the Easter Vigil Mass.  Lent and Easter 2013 was an amazing period of spiritual growth for me.  It was also when I began attending daily Mass, which I haven't stopped attending since.  My original WIWS post is here and I included some thoughts about this Lent and Easter in this post.

 

 

Shortly after Easter, the parish where I attend daily Mass hosted a Forty Hours of Eucharistic Devotion.  The Blessed Sacrament was exposed for Forty Hours and was kept vigil by various parishioners and priests throughout the Forty Hours.  It was an amazing thing to be a part of.  In this Quick Takes post, I talked about being a part of it.

 

 

 At the end of April, my son Hunter was Confirmed.  I also got to be the sponsor of a girl that hasn't had the easiest life.  At her young age, she has had to deal with the loss of her mother and many close relatives and friends due to untimely deaths. I was honored to be able to be present for her and still hope she knows that I will always be here for her.

 

 

 This weekend in May was our last Formation for Ministry Retreat as students.  It was a beautiful time to spend with my classmates and the icing on the cake was that it was led by the same priest that brought me into the Catholic Church.  That fact made this weekend extra special for me. Thank you Father Lauzon for your guidance twelve years ago and for the beautiful retreat to bring our two years of formation to a close.  I wrote a small amount about it here.

And, by the way, these beautiful photos were taken by one of our youngest classmates.  He is an inspiration to me and gives me hope for the future of our young people.  Thank you Jesse, for letting me use them.

 

 

 These are photos from our Commissioning to Lay Ministers.  The group photo is not the official one obviously, but it is my favorite because everyone was laughing and smiling.  Even the Bishop was laughing with us.  I've said it a few times, but we have the best Bishop!  On the right is me with the other two ladies from our parish that went through the program, along with our priest.  My original post is here and also includes some comments about the next photo.

 

 

 

 This is the group photo from the 2013 Catholic Heart Work Camp trip in July.

This trip is always a blessing to me.  To get to see so many young people spend a week of their summer helping others less fortunate then themselves and then come back and spend hours in praise and worship of God.  It really is a life changing week, and I have been fortunate enough to be a part of it for the last three summers. My reflection from the week is here.

 

 

 This was from the closing Mass at one of our sister churches.  In its early days and over the years, this parish was the start up for many of the other parishes in our area.  I was honored to be able to photograph the event.  It was one of the saddest things, but also one of the most beautiful things I have experienced.  This post includes more of my pictures from the closing Mass.

 

 

My Hunter in the Kayak...isn't he cute?

 

 

 Me and my kiddos!

 

 

 Hunters first day of 10th grade.

 

 

 A nice family day together!

 

 

 And to finish it off, these from Christmas!  Including the new kitten, Otto.

 

 **EDIT: So crazy me forgot to link back to the linkup - go check out all the best at Dwija's.

 

Most! plus {7QT}

Sarah over at "Amongst Lovely Things" is holding a link-up.  So since I am coming to the end of my first full year of blogging, I thought I would do it...and heck....link-ups are just plain fun!!

And since it is Friday, I'm also going to link up with Jen at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday.

So, my Most Posts for 2013, as follows:

Quick Take #1 - 1st - Post with the Most Clicks - Theme Thursday: Secret

This one surprised me the most....but it was a link up, and in hind-sight the title probably drew some clicks too...who doesn't want to know a secret...

Quick Take #2 - 2nd - Post with the Most Comments - My Bookshelves

Again, another link-up, but one of my favorites.

Quick Take #3 - 3rd - Post with the Best Picture - 7 Quick Takes

The picture quality isn't the best, but I'm voting it best because I love when my kids have fun together.

Quick Take #4 - 4th - Post that was the Hardest to Write - Where I Come From

I did a blogging challenge in September called Blogtember. The first challenge was to write a post about where you come from.  I really opened up on this and put a lot of stuff out there for all to see.  I don't regret it for a minute, and this is one of my very favorite posts.

Quick Take #5 - 5th - Post that was My Personal Favorite - Sacraments and Confession

This post and the time around when I wrote it was a spiritually charged time in my life.  I had finally come to an understanding of Confession and was able to celebrate the Sacrament fully knowing I was receiving God's Grace.  I knew without a doubt that I was doing what I should be doing, what God intended for my life.

It was a little hard to pick a favorite post.  (So that's how I am going to make this 7 Quick Takes...)

Quick Take #6 - Another Favorite Post - My Conversion Story

This is the post that I expected to the be the Most Clicks...It's second.  Anyway, this one is a favorite for a couple reasons.  First, it's the story of how I came to this beautiful Catholic faith. I can't imagine where I would be today without it. I have been given so many blessings that I wouldn't have otherwise recognized, and I wouldn't have been shown God's love in so many people that have come into my life because of it. And second, it prompted my interview on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel with Gus Lloyd. I know God wanted my story heard....I trust Him that the one who needed to hear it did.

Quick Take #7 - Another Favorite post - New Job

This one is one of favorites because it is when I really started seeing God's active plan in my life.  And I haven't stopped since.

So, that's my contribution for this weeks quick takes and also my 2013 Mosts!  Thanks for stopping by!  You are welcome anytime!

Feeling Proud

Today is my dad’s 76^th birthday.

Growing up, he was a great example to me of a good Christian man.  He was involved in the church, helping out wherever needed, even building a church building at one time.

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am open about becoming Catholic.  Anyone who is my Facebook friend also would easily be able to tell that I am Catholic.  I have often wondered what the people that I grew up protestant with think about that.   There are a couple of them that often ‘like’ my status updates, which makes me feel good, but I just sometimes wonder.

Since becoming Catholic, I haven’t had any conversations with him about that decision.  Part of the reason being that we don’t live near each other; the other reason is because we just don’t talk as much as we should.

I called him to wish him a Happy Birthday.  We had a really nice conversation, and I was telling him all about my recent promotion and about how many doctors’ offices I manage, and his reply was that his is proud of me but then he also said how proud he is of me for what I have been doing in the Catholic Church. 

I have always wanted to make him proud of me, and to hear him say that about my faith was one of the most beautiful moments I never expected.  In the midst of me trying to make him proud about what I have done in my career, ultimately it was my relationship with God that made him the most proud. 

 

It meant the world to me and I will cherish that conversation always.

 

What a Week!!

 

I took this last week off just to take a week off with nothing to do, much...

 

My Hunter man.

This was last weekend, Hunter and I spent some time together stacking our last load of wood for the winter. 

He is so smart it scares me a little. We had a long conversation about energy.  He really knows a lot about it, and is fascinated by nuclear energy.  We talked about renewable energy sources, fuels, and what the future of energy will be.  I should say HE talked about, I just listened and tried to come up with good questions.  (Although I knew I was completely out smarted)  Now I'm not positive, but I'm pretty certain that he didn't learn all about it in school.  He has taken his own time to learn it.  Those summer days when he is home, he isn't just playing Minecraft, he is actually learning about things he finds interesting.  His future looks so bright, I might just have to wear shades... :)

Oh yeah, and an interesting gem he found out recently, Pope Frances was actually a Chemist before becoming a priest.  Hunter thought that was pretty cool.

I had a hair appointment on Wednesday to get a cut and all of my gray covered up.  Those of you who have seen me recently will agree, it was getting pretty bad.

Ohhh how I hate selfies

And then the most exciting, nerve racking thing happened,  I received an email from Sirius XM's The Catholic Channel about doing an interview with Gus Lloyd about my conversion story!  I was so surprised, it took me a little while to respond.  I mean really, I'm not sure my story is that interesting, but you never know what will capture someone's attention and maybe the simple stories are good for people to hear too. 

Anyway, emails back and forth and it has been settled that I will be doing the interview on Monday morning at 8:00 am EST.  I'm nervous as can be, but with a lot of support and prayers, I will make it through.  So please, send up your prayers for my peace and confidence and that the Holy Spirit works through me on Monday.

Thursday was a lazy day at home, but I got to spend it with my daughter Kayla.  That rarely happens anymore, but it was really nice.  She cracks me up...that kid can talk.

One last thing...you may have seen my post about the Matthew Kelly talk I attended a couple weeks ago.  I recently came into possession of an extra copy of his book "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic".  So I would like to give it away to one of my blog readers.  I know I don't have much of a following yet, but I would really like to share the wealth a little bit. 

So if you are interested in winning this book, please leave me a comment below.  I will leave it open until the end of November and then draw a lucky winner.

My goal for this week was to get rested up.  There is so much going on in healthcare lately that I really needed to get some time away so that I could rest and prepare to jump back in refreshed and whole heartedly give it all my best.  I believe I have accomplished that.

Thanks for stopping by!!